


True North

by grapehyasynth



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Divergent, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-30
Updated: 2016-05-30
Packaged: 2018-07-11 05:31:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7030981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grapehyasynth/pseuds/grapehyasynth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Jemma signs up for Coulson's mobile unit, Fitz does not. He stays at SciOps. When Jemma comes back, she is a wreck and there is a chasm between them, which is not helped by the fact that Fitz is in love with Jemma and can't tell her when he clearly makes her worse. One night things reach a boiling point.</p>
            </blockquote>





	True North

Fitz sighs and rolls over,  _ again _ , pushing the sheets down past his waist. 

He’s already drunk warm milk and counted sheep but between the heat, the humidity, and Jemma, sleep is hopeless at this point. 

He can’t see the heavy summer rain falling past his open window, but he can hear it where it hits the pavement three stories down. Jemma is out there in that, unless she’s taken refuge in some dive bar to try to drown the miseries she won’t share with him. 

They’d rowed again, and Jemma had fled the apartment. He’d chased after her but lost her in the storm, and she won’t answer her phone. 

He sat up at the kitchen table til 2, rehearsing a dozen versions of an apology, before giving up and going to bed. 

They row a lot now. Before everything, before SHIELD, it had been mostly bickering, but it’s something else these days. Something that hurts a lot more.

Three years ago, Jemma had left SciOps for a field team. Fitz had stayed. She had begged and threatened and wheedled but Fitz had joined SHIELD for science, not to dodge bullets and run for his life. 

He had thought Jemma had felt the same way, and finding out otherwise, seeing her meet with Maria Hill without him, sitting on her bed while she packed her bags and chattered excitedly about all the new places she’d see -- that had been the first distance between them, before she’d even left. 

They’d stayed in contact, of course, and their weekly Skype calls were the highlight of Fitz’s boring, comfortable existence. But there was a lot Jemma couldn’t share about their missions. She grew frustrated with the chasm between her experience and Fitz’s, and their conversations grew shorter. “You wouldn’t understand,” she would often say angrily, averting her gaze. He never knew how to answer that, as it was true.

She almost came home after the Hydra coup, and again when Gonzales’s faction tried to take over. She told Fitz she didn’t know who to trust anymore, that if he were there then certainly together they’d figure it out, but that alone she felt her moral compass spinning, always spinning, never finding its north. 

It was the closest they’d been since she left. They talked every day, and Fitz had felt something shifting. They’d just arranged a date for her return -- she’d bought the plane tickets, Fitz had cleaned up her room, which he’d somehow never managed to rent out, and made a reservation at a nice restaurant -- when he got a call from one of Jemma’s teammates, a Bobbi Morse, informing him that Jemma had been sent on an emergency mission, deep undercover. They didn’t know how long it would last. After that, for certain, she’d be allowed to leave. 

It was six months. Morse wouldn’t share the specifics but when she met Fitz at the airport, guiding a too-pale, too-skinny Jemma his way, she told him quietly that things had gone wrong. Very wrong. 

Jemma had come back simultaneously stronger and more fragile, powerful but breakable, with a hard shell and a mind in torment. She wouldn’t talk to him, but she said just having him there helped. 

But nowadays he wonders if he actually makes her worse. Everytime he thinks she’s healing, almost back to normal, she starts going on benders and missing work and staying out late with men Fitz doesn’t like.

He thinks maybe she needs her old teammates, the ones who understand her. He remembers who she  _ was  _ but cannot know  _ who she is now _ , not if she doesn’t let him in. 

Fitz brushes away a trickle of sweat that has been making its way down the side of his face. It must reach a breaking point soon. It’s been worse in the last month. Since she broke up with her most recent ruddy git of a boyfriend, it seems anything he says will set her off. The reactions range from crying to screaming. 

Running away is a new one, though. 

He wonders if she knows. If she’s realized how he feels about her. He’d hoped he might’ve gotten over it by the time she got back but it’s stronger than ever. 

If she does know, it would explain a lot. Why she has so much trouble meeting his eyes, why she’s gone off the deep end and stays out all night, why she finds excuses to not be in the same room as him.

It must be so uncomfortable to live with your best friend when your best friend is in love with you. 

He’s made it this far down this very dark train of thought when he hears the front door open. He lets out a sigh of relief and curls up on his side to face the window, one foot hanging off the end of the bed. He doesn’t hear any voices, so she must be alone. He thinks about getting up to talk to her but if he’s the reason she’s in such a bad way, hounding her will only make things worse. It can wait til morning. 

But then his bedroom door opens as well. He knows it’s Jemma -- he can’t explain how, except for maybe having memorized the pattern of her breathing -- and his whole body tenses. 

He tries to rest normally, to act like he’s sleeping, because if Jemma’s drunk and belligerent he doesn’t want to encourage her. 

The light from the hallway vanishes and the door shuts, but before he can relax, stockinged feet cross the floor and the other side of the mattress dips. He twists his head around, and he can barely see Jemma in the dark room, but he can feel her inches away. She tugs the sheets he’s discarded up to her shoulder and lays down on her side in a ball, her back to him, carefully not touching him. 

With other people, this would seem like a violation or an invasion of some sort, but they used to climb into each other’s beds all the time at the Academy and in the years before Jemma left for her mobile unit. But they haven’t done it since then. 

Fitz lays carefully back down, not understanding why she is here but knowing she will be gone by morning. 

But then the mattress starts to shake and he can hear her barely-stifled sobs. He is on her side of the bed in a millisecond, holding himself up with one arm to hover over her.

“Hey, Jemma -- Jem--” he murmurs, smoothing a hand over her hair. 

She’s soaked through and he can’t tell where rain ends and tears begin. He slips an arm under her shoulders and cradles her to him. Her crying redoubles and she clutches his T-shirt while he rubs a thumb over her back. 

To his surprise, she does not smell like whiskey or Scotch or tequila or any of the other pain-killers she’s taken to recently. She smells like Jemma, like that sensible shampoo she’s used for as long as he’s known her and the antiseptic she’s too liberal with in the lab and the slight musk of sweat. She is sober, she is aching, and she has climbed into his bed. It is the most  _ them  _ thing to happen in three years. 

Her whole body shudders against him with each sob. “I’m so sorry,” she whispers. “I’m so, so sorry--” 

“Hey, now, that’s not--” 

“For everything, Fitz, for leaving, for coming back, for being such a crap friend--” 

“You’re not--” 

“I’ve done things, Fitz!” she cries, pulling back and wiping at her running mascara. “Things you wouldn’t believe. Things that would make you  _ hate  _ me, if you don’t already.” 

“I’d never--” 

“And -- I look at you and you’re so gentle and all you’ve done in the past three years is push science somewhere better, kinder, more humane, and I’ve been -- I’ve --” She hiccups and Fitz slides his hand up and down her spine, feeling her vertebrae. “I’m so lost, Fitz.” 

“You’re not,” he insists, tilting her chin up with his free hand. “If you’re crying over it, Jemma, you’re not lost. If you were a terrible person you’d not be here at all, you’d not be so affected by it.” 

Her lips quiver but she doesn’t protest this time, so he continues. 

“I’m only sorry I couldn’t be there for you,” he says softly. 

“I’m the one who left,” Jemma replies dully, blinking rapidly. 

“And the one who came back,” he reminds her. 

She looks up at him, close enough that even in the near-darkness he can see a tear tracking its way down next to her nose. 

“Fitz,” she whispers, and leans forward, nuzzling his neck, pressing quick kisses on the hot skin there. 

He tilts his head automatically to make it easier for her, but he closes his eyes, because this will pass, and he wants it to last forever. 

Suddenly her mouth is on his, quite insistently, and he jerks back, eyes opening, but she follows him, lips taking any part of his face she can reach. 

“Jemma, we can’t--” he pants, he pleads. “I can’t do this.” 

“Give me one good reason,” she dares against his chin, her breath causing him to shiver, driving him to distraction to the point where he wouldn’t be able to answer her if he didn’t know one very good reason, know it so well that it should be tattooed on the inside of his wrist. 

“Because it won’t mean the same thing to you as it will to me,” he whispers dejectedly. 

She stiffens in his grip and withdraws from him. “Oh.” 

“I’m sorry, Jemma, I should have said something earlier.” 

“No, Fitz,  _ I’m _ sorry, I can’t imagine how uncomfortable you are--” 

“It’s not your fault,” he says quickly, brow furrowing. “You’ve just been living your life--” 

“Yes, but I dropped in on you and complicated everything with  _ feelings _ \--” 

“But my feelings aren’t your responsibility,” he insists. 

“Wait.” Jemma places a hand on his chest to stop him, even forgetting to cry now. “ _ Your _ feelings?” 

“Yeah.” He frowns at her. “What did you think we were talking about?” 

“What  _ were  _ you talking about?” 

“How I’m a totally perverted, grimy arsehole who can’t even stop himself from falling for his best friend when all she needs is someone to support her and just being around him is making her worse--” 

Jemma launches herself up at him with such a force that he rolls over and she lands on top, holding him down with a searing kiss. 

“I feel the same way,” she mumbles against his lips. “Not that you’re a perverted arsehole but--” 

She’s crying again, but Fitz suspects these are a different classification of tears. He settles his hands on her hips and tries to focus on a spot on the ceiling so he can clear his mind enough to make sure things are clear between them. 

“I don’t want -- you to do this -- if it’s not about us -- if it’s because you’re -- confused and feeling lost --,” he pants, just barely sneaking in words between her kisses. 

“Fitz,” Jemma whispers, pushing herself up on his shoulders so she can capture his eyes, “you are the only thing that makes me  _ not  _ feel lost.” 

“But the last few months--” 

“I’ve been trying to reconcile how I feel about you with the fact that I’ll never be worthy of you--” 

Fitz grabs the back of her head and pulls her down to him, initiating a kiss for the first time. When they finally separate, he says fiercely, “You are perfect to me, Jemma Simmons. And you needn’t prove yourself to me or to anyone else.” 

She’s crying in earnest now, her head falling forward onto his chest and he cradles her again, wondering if he’d just said that months ago if she could have actually healed, if in the meantime she’s been unraveling and try to weave herself back together at the same time. 

He thinks back to all the times she said  _ You wouldn’t understand  _ and wonders if her anger was directed at herself, if she’s spent the last three years feeling lonely and false and working so hard to be strong that she’s not let anyone be strong  _ for her _ . 

He wonders if this is the first time she’s let someone really, properly hold her in three years. He wonders if she’s cried in front of anyone in three years. 

He is certainly not whole and stable himself, but if she needs him to be her true north, even for just a bit, he will. 

They don’t have sex that night. It doesn’t feel right. But they kiss, a lot, and fall asleep in each other’s arms, and Jemma wakes up to find that the rain has stopped and Fitz’s open mouth is still half-pressed against her temple. She can smell his morning breath and she wrinkles her nose a bit but her stomach tightens with the anticipation of kissing him when he wakes up. 

Then they will have breakfast, and they will sit together -- maybe he will even let her sit on his lap -- and they will hold hands, and they will finally have a conversation. 

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry this was so angsty! It started with just the idea of a rainy night and Jemma crawling into Fitz's bed and then became this much darker thing... Hope the context makes sense?
> 
> Find me on Tumblr! I'm grapehyasynth there as well.


End file.
